


Chivalry for Beginners

by bluenebulae



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Past Joffrey Baratheon/Sansa Stark, Renaissance Faires, Theon is a Lovestruck Dork, Theonsa Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-17
Updated: 2019-09-17
Packaged: 2020-10-20 06:34:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20670896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluenebulae/pseuds/bluenebulae
Summary: Theon Greyjoy's summer has been spent languishing behind the counter of a food stall at his town's annual renaissance fair - the last place he wants to be, surrounded by ugly costumes and cheesy music and Sansa and Joffrey's sickeningly public relationship. But Sansa needs a knight, and Theon might be the only person for the job. Maybe chivalry's not so dead after all...





	Chivalry for Beginners

It isn’t even noon yet and Theon Greyjoy’s already cleaning vomit off the side of the Meat Hut, his itchy, puff-sleeved shirt stuck to his back with sweat, and wondering what his life has come to.

It’s far from the first time he’s been in this particular situation—in fact, he’s well enough acquainted with it that he could probably add it to his woefully bare resume under _Expert at removing bodily fluids while dressed in medieval period garb. _It could go alongside _swearing in iambic pentameter _and _chasing down kids intent on stabbing you with glorified wooden sticks_. Fat lot of good it will do Theon for ever getting out of his tiny hometown of King’s Landing, but hey, maybe next summer he can move on from the Meat Hut to something less…volatile.

Theon pauses in his scrubbing to swipe a hand across his forehead, then thinks better of it when he smells said hand and instead lifts it to block out the sun. He should be treasuring the last few days of summer, but instead he finds himself wishing for the cooler weather that’s right around the corner, the start of autumn only a few days away. It would be his favorite time of year, if it weren’t for the groundswell of leaf-peeping tourists it brings crashing through the gates of Ye Olde King’s Landing Authentic Renaissance Experience.

There are a few idiosyncrasies to King’s Landing: there’s no water for miles around, so no boat had ever landed there, for one. Theon’s also pretty sure no royalty, king or otherwise, has ever set foot in their little town, unless he’s counting Mr. Baratheon and Cersei Lannister, who get to dress up in clothes even more ridiculous than his and lord over the rest of the fair’s seasonal employees just by virtue of owning the place and therefore being the richest pair in town.

And then there’s the third, and in Theon’s opinion, worst part about King’s Landing, New Hampshire: the fact that the single defining feature of the town is a fucking medieval renaissance fair.

It’s the curse of the name, he guesses, but from the summer he turned fourteen all Theon can remember on weekends from the end of July until the first snows in mid-November is a haze of lute music, starchy fabric, and enough ‘thees’ and ‘thys’ and ‘miladys’ to turn him off Shakespeare forever. He hadn’t always been consigned to the Meat Hut—this is his first summer in his own personal corner of hell—but in search of money and anything to cut through the boredom of summer days he, and all two hundred of the other students in his high school, had inevitably made their way to the huge clearing in the town’s state park to indulge everyone from exhausted families to washed-up cosplayers in their medieval fantasies.

If Theon has anything to say about it, it’s going to be his last.

“Greyjoy!”

Theon throws down the disgusting towel and clenches his fists to stop himself from screaming.

“Where are you?” the Hound rumbles, his shaggy hair preceding his face poking around the corner of the wooden stall. “We’re running out of chicken. There are slobbering children up my arse.”

Theon holds up his puke-stained hands in response.

The Hound rolls his eyes. “Leave it. Maybe the smell will make the little bastards leave us alone.”

“Or maybe it will give them ideas.”

Still, Theon does as the older man asks, vigorously scrubbing his hands in the back of the hut before rolling down the stupid puffy sleeves of his horrible shirt and plastering on the fakest smile he can manage.

The Hound, if nothing else, is a silent work partner. Theon has no clue where the nickname came from or pretty much anything else about the man—only that he’d been around the Meat Hut for as long as there had _been _a Meat Hut, or for that matter, a King’s Landing Renaissance Faire. Theon had been as terrified of him as any other kid in town when he started, but it turns out the Hound’s rugged exterior doesn’t hide anything except a filthy tongue and a solid work ethic.

Theon’s work ethic, on the other hand, leaves something to be desired.

He’s handing out grease-dripping legs of chicken with the same shit-eating grin he’d plastered on half an hour ago, his jaw beginning to ache from the stupid expression, when a flash of red catches his eye, somewhere out near the jousting grounds. He blinks, distracted, and nearly drops a chicken leg on the customer’s ridiculous fairy getup, earning him a mouthful of cusses from the lady.

It’s not just that it’s Sansa Stark, or the fact that he’s still trying to reconcile how hot she is now with the girl he grew up with, or how she’s the only person in the park’s limits who can pull off period garb like she was made to be a princess in a cornflower blue gown. It’s that she’s crying.

“Sansa!” he calls as the lady stomps off, clutching her chicken and muttering swears. Sansa doesn’t turn; she probably can’t hear him over the raucous music. He does catch a full-on glimpse of her face as she rounds the corner to the parking lot, though. Her face is flushed red, nearly the same color as the hair she’s trying to hide behind; her bottom lip is trembling, her cheeks streaked with tears.

He’s got half a mind to run right out of the Meat Hut and catch her and ask what’s wrong, except that he’s already pushed his luck with showing up late enough times and he _really _needs the money and besides, Sansa probably doesn’t even want to see him right now. It’s not like they’re good friends, per se; he spends nearly all of his free moments at the old Stark mansion in the woods because of Robb, but he hadn’t had anything that could be considered a deep conversation with Sansa since she was five and he was seven and she asked him why he always cried so much when he had to leave their place on Winterfell Court. He’d tried, sometimes, but these days it seems like she’s always caught up giggling with her friends or the snide Lannister boy she’s been dating.

The image of her, red-faced and distraught, won’t leave his mind, though.

When Robb ambles by an hour later, covered from the neck down in blindingly shiny metal plates, Theon makes sure to grab his attention. Robb whirls around to the Meat Hut at the sound of his name.

“Theon!” He goes in for an awkward over-the-counter hug, but Theon’s been on the receiving end of getting jabbed with those hot metal plates before, and he catches Robb’s hand in a firm grasp instead. “How goes the meat?”

“It’s…” Theon wrinkles his nose. “Meaty.”

“Yeah, and I thought my job was bad.” He tries to repress an eye roll at that; Robb’s one of the knights, and he gets to spend all day fake jousting atop one of the Baratheons’ horses and flirting badly with visitors. Not even close to Theon’s personal circle of hell.

“Sansa,” he says, diverting the topic. “Is she alright? I saw her run past here crying earlier.”

Robb’s face falls. “Yeah, she’ll be fine. Joffrey just broke up with her.”

“Oh.” Theon doesn’t say what he really wants to, which is that Joffrey Lannister is a nasty, spoiled dick and that Sansa’s better off without him.

“Yeah. She’s better off without him.” Robb sighs and folds his forearms across the Meat Hut’s counter, metal clanging as he stiffly maneuvers himself. “God, I can’t wait to ditch this shit. Anyway, he was horrible. Did it in front of a whole bunch of people, too. Humiliating. I’d punch his lights out, except he’s disappeared and I don’t want to lose my job.”

“Yeah, you don’t want an angry Cersei Lannister after you,” Theon says lamely. His blood is boiling, though, and he’s not sure he’d be able to restrain himself if he were face-to-face with the bastard either.

“Do you know which way she went?”

“Parking lot, I think. It was an hour ago, though.”

Robb mutters a few choice names for Joffrey Lannister that would make the Hound blush. “Alright, better go find her. There’s a thing at Margaery’s tonight, by the way. You should come.”

“Maybe,” Theon says. “Sounds cool.”

“Right, I’m off then. A big brother’s work never ends. Try not to kill any tourists while I’m gone.”

Theon smirks. “I’ll try my best. Good luck, bro. Hope she’s okay.”

He nearly offers to come with Robb, his hands already fumbling at the apron tie at his back, but then Robb’s clanking off towards the parking lot and Theon loses his nerve. At the end of the day, he’s not a Stark, not like Robb and Sansa and even Jon. Sansa doesn’t need his comfort right now.

If he sees Joffrey Lannister today, Theon promises himself as consolation, he’ll do a hell of a lot more than swear at him.

-

He doesn’t end up going to Margaery’s party. The fair stays busy long into the evening with visitors trying to squeeze every last drop of fun out of summer before it’s gone, and by the time Theon makes it home, the only thing he can think about is dropping into bed.

He grabs one of his uncle’s craft beers from the fridge, pulls off his itchy clothes, and collapses, zoning out to Netflix. There’s a crash from downstairs, and high-pitched giggles—Yara and the Targaryen she’d started seeing, if he had to guess—so Theon just cranks the volume up.

No matter how loud it goes, though, it won’t drown out the noise in his head.

He’s known for about six months that he’s into Sansa Stark. Theon doesn’t have a _crush _on her—that’s so juvenile, and it implies a level of emotional involvement that he’s not ready to commit to or even consider. He _does _know that his suave, wisecracking persona crumbles very quickly under her cool gaze, which has proven to be an issue at the fair, the Starks’ house, and school alike. (Theon can’t even fully dodge Sansa there—she’s smart enough that she’s always been getting put into classes a grade level ahead of her, annoying him and Robb to no end.)

That’s why it had been so painful to see her prancing about with Joffrey Lannister for the past few months, especially at work, where there had been zero chance of escaping it. Joffrey had taken to his first summer with a job as well as could be expected for a spoiled boy playing the literal prince of an entire small town. The jousting field’s location, conveniently placed right across from the row of food vendors, meant Theon hadn’t gone a single day all month without having to watch Sansa moon over his stupid shiny armor and stupid white horse every three hours like clockwork.

Not as if she’d ever noticed him, sequestered away in the fucking Meat Hut.

But it’s okay. Theon isn’t invested. He doesn’t have a fucking _crush _on Sansa. He’d spent most of July messing around with Ros behind the stables, anyway. Sansa’s just _there _so much, in Theon’s life, that it’s natural he can’t get her out of his head.

Doesn’t mean he doesn’t still dream about punching Joffrey Lannister’s smug face in that night.

Theon wakes up to his laptop still open on his chest, the battery dead; a lukewarm, half-empty beer balanced precariously on his windowsill; and a handful of unread texts flashing on his phone. The first few are from Robb, timestamped from the night before, the spelling devolving at a staggering rate until it’s strings of gibberish that Robb had apparently sent at 2am. There’s one more from him, from half an hour ago, that reads “duuude I fucked up.”

And then—Theon blinks twice to make sure he’s reading it right—two from Sansa Stark.

**Sansa Stark** _: Hi, Theon. Are you on the schedule for work today?_

**Sansa Stark** _: Sorry, I know this is probably awkward, it’s just kind of an emergency_

As he watches, blearily swiping at his eyes, a third pops up: _Can you call me?_

He bolts upright in bed, knocking his laptop onto the floor and sending his head swimming. It’s just—confusing, a whole lot to wake up to. It’s not like Sansa isn’t his friend. They just don’t call each other. They’ve never had a reason to.

_An emergency_. His mind darts to Sansa’s distress the day before, and then to Joffrey’s smarmy smirk. And Sansa’s calling _him _to be her knight in shining armor. Not Robb, not Jon—him.

_Shit, _Theon thinks.

He jumps out of bed, splashes his face with cold water, and gulps down a glass of it before taking three deep breaths as he watches himself in the mirror. Then he punches the call button next to Sansa’s name.

She picks up on the first ring. “Hey, Theon. Thank you. Sorry this is so out of nowhere.” Her voice is weird, rougher than normal, and Theon hopes it’s just the early hour.

“Hey, no problem. What’s up?”

“Robb’s not going to make it into work today.”

Theon chuckles. “Margaery’s party was that good, huh?”

“Jon and I have been force-feeding him Pedialyte since he came home.” Sansa sighs, and Theon can imagine her twisting her hair around her fingers, the way he’s seen her do when she’s nervous. “But it’s that big harvest celebration thing at the fair today, and he’s supposed to be jousting.”

“Ah,” Theon says.

“He’s supposed to be jousting against Joffrey.”

“Oh.”

“Listen,” she says, “you can say no. I know you don’t ride horses that much and you hate Robb’s stupid armor and I shouldn’t even be asking you this—”

“Hey, no, Sansa, it’s okay,” Theon breaks in. He doesn’t like hearing her so unconfident. It’s not right to him, not Sansa. But at the same time, it sparks a little warmth in his chest to know that it’s _him _she’s turning to, that she’s willing to be open with him. “I’ll do it. I’ll—fuck, I don’t know—I can probably fit in Robb’s armor, right?”

“It’s just that Jon is supposed to go up to visit Ygritte this weekend anyway, and he’s already running late because of Robb, and Podrick is scared of horses and Bran is obviously way too young…”

“I’m fine. It’ll be good. I’ve always wanted to whack someone with a huge wooden pole.”

“I’ll be there,” Sansa says quietly. “If that helps.”

“It does. It’ll be good. Just—bring Robb’s armor, yeah? I’ll meet you there.”

“Okay.” And then, a moment later, so quiet that he nearly misses it: “Thank you, Theon.”

It’s only after he hangs up, heart pounding as he rushes to make himself presentable, that Theon remembers he hasn’t ridden a horse in years.

-

It’s as sunny as the day before at the fairground, but there’s a breeze in the air that wasn’t there before, a chill portending the coming autumn. It’s perfectly appropriate for the twee, pumpkin-filled mood of the Harvest Festival, which looks like the seasonal section of HomeGoods has vomited all over the park.

It’s also a perfect match for Theon’s growing nerves.

Sansa had been waiting for him outside the stable when he’d arrived, a lumpy duffel bag sitting at her feet, which made an ominous clanking when Theon picked it up. Still, he’d agreed to do this, and even if he had been thinking of chickening out Sansa’s mussed hair and her desperate, red-rimmed eyes had convinced him not to.

So now he’s standing at the edge of a crowd bigger than the population of his entire high school, covered from neck to foot in heavy metal, and only slightly losing his mind.

The horse Robb usually rides is brown. Theon wishes he knew how to talk about horses the way everyone else in his town does—whether it’s a mare or a stallion, or how many hands high it is, or what breed it is or whatever—but he’d never really liked horses, and all he knows about this one is that it’s brown, and that it’s currently giving him a severe stink-eye.

“Hey, boy,” Theon says warily, reaching out one gauntleted hand. The horse rears back and whinnies angrily. _Great_. “Okay, maybe a girl, then. Hey, girl. I’m not trying to hurt you. Just pretend I’m Robb for twenty minutes, alright?”

The horse doesn’t look impressed, but it does let Theon put a hand on its nose.

“See? Not so hard. Okay.” Theon takes a deep breath.

“Theon!”

He turns. Sansa is rushing through the entrance of the stable. She’s changed clothes, too; gone are her sweatshirt and cutoff shorts and messy bun, replaced with a pale pink dress that sets off her complexion, delicate cloth roses ringing the neckline.

She gives him a smile that’s embarrassed and grateful in equal measure. The roiling pit of nerves in Theon’s stomach calms ever so slightly.

“Before you go out,” she says, slightly breathless, “I wanted to say thank you again. And…good luck.”

She comes in close, and a sweet, floral scent washes over Theon before he feels a soft press against his cheek. _Oh. _His breath catches.

“It’s nothing, Sansa, really,” he mumbles.

“I’ll be cheering for you.”

She’s still close enough that her breath fans across his cheek with each word, and despite the heat of the heavy armor, a chill undulates down Theon’s spine.

Oh, god. He’s about to face a massive crowd of strangers looking as red as a tomato. A shiny, disheveled tomato atop a tin can.

He thankfully can’t stop to further consider how stupid he’s about to look, though, because Gendry Waters has appeared to boost him up into his saddle and Sansa has departed the stables in a whirl of rose-colored cotton and soft smiles, and Theon’s so busy watching her take her place at the front of the royal re-enactors’ box that he doesn’t notice Gendry trying to hand him an absurd-looking object until Gendry clears his throat.

“What the fuck is that?”

“Your lance,” Gendry says patiently.

It’s longer than Theon is tall. It’s made of spindly, brightly-colored wood. It’s _sharp_.

“Is Joffrey Lannister going to have one of those too?” asks Theon faintly. Gendry nods.

“Oh. Alright, then.”

Theon shoves his helmet onto his head so that Gendry doesn’t see him lose it.

The sun is bright in his eyes when he rides out onto the field. He flips his visor up, temporarily blinded; underneath him, Robb’s horse bucks, and Theon nearly drops his lance as he dives for the reins. He prays nobody’s seen it, but he’s also not kidding himself. They’re all looking at him. Sansa and her father, the Lannisters, Robert Baratheon, the kid who’d thrown up on the Meat Hut the day before. And at the other end of the grassy thoroughfare, atop a horse so well-groomed that it practically shines white, his golden hair gleaming in the sun, is Joffrey fucking Lannister.

Theon had actually learned how to ride a horse when he was younger. He, Robb, and Jon had taken lessons together when they were all thirteen out on the Tarth ranch, where pretty much everyone in town goes to learn how to ride, because they all knew they might end up in this exact situation someday. Robb had taken to it like a fish to water; Jon had done a thoroughly decent job. Theon had fallen off three times in the space of his first hour-long lesson, formed an antagonistic relationship with his horse, and quit halfway through to join the swimming rec team.

If only he’d had even a drop of patience in his body. But no, this is his life now—staring down Joffrey Lannister, who’d gotten private riding lessons since he was a toddler, who _always _wins these jousts anyway because nobody in the town is willing to stand up to him or embarrass his family.

Luckily, after working where he’s worked all summer, Theon doesn’t think he has dignity left to lose.

Joffrey narrows his eyes at Theon before schooling his face into a smarmy smile. He rides out to cheers, one hand raised to wave as if he’s already triumphed, his horse carrying him for a leisurely circuit around the tilting field. Theon had forgotten about this part in his haze of worry: the bit where the knights are supposed to ride around, collecting favors and adulations from the crowd, while Robin Arryn spews some made-up stuff about their legacy and family name and whatnot over the crackling loudspeaker. He’s doing it for Joffrey now, as Joffrey passes the box where his mother sits next to Sansa, both of them determinedly ignoring the other. Sansa’s glare is stony, but her lip trembles.

Theon tries to catch her eye. When she sees him staring, she finally looks away from Joffrey, giving Theon a small smile that feels intensely private, even with all the people surrounding them.

“And challenging the fair Prince Lannister is Robb of the great House—wait. Uh…”

Theon winces, but urges his horse out onto the field anyway.

“Theon. It’s Theon of house Greyjoy!” Robin says, sounding incredibly whiny. Great, another thing he’d done wrong—forgetting to tell Robin he’d be standing in for Robb today. Theon’s sure he’ll get an earful from Lysa Arryn about that later on. “Theon is…a knight.”

Theon’s groan reverberates through the inside of his helmet.

He gets more looks of confusion than favors from the people in the stands, though he does collect a couple grubby handkerchiefs and an old McDonald’s bag. Then he nudges his horse toward the re-enactors’ segment of the stands.

They’re all watching him intently. Cersei Lannister is giving him a glare haughty enough to freeze his blood.

Then Sansa stands, a flush in her cheeks. “Ser Theon,” she calls, her voice amplified by the mic above their heads, “come closer.”

Theon kicks his horse a little too hard, and it lurches forward at the booth. Sansa stifles a giggle.

When the horse finally stops moving, Theon tries to bow, but it’s an awkward motion to make while trying to keep his balance sitting upright, so he gives up and just waves. “Uh, hi. How can I serve you, S—milady?”

Sansa’s expression is serious, but her eyes are sparkling. She’s enjoying the silly roleplaying, enjoying seeing Theon make a fool out of himself with the medieval slang. Well, whatever it takes to make her laugh. Theon’s already come this far.

She reaches down and pulls something off the front of her dress. Theon hadn’t noticed it before—a shiny silver pin, as far as he can tell. “A token of my favor,” she says. “It’s not much, but I hope it will bring you luck.”

Theon’s heard her say the same thing a hundred times over the summer as she gave flowers or scarves to Joffrey, but it sounds so different when the words are actually directed at _him_.

She leans over the railing. Theon expects her to only hand the object to him, but Sansa bends nearly in half so that she can reach his neck, finding the bit of his collar poking out from underneath his armor. Her fingers brush against his skin as he swallows thickly.

“I will wear it with pride, milady,” Theon murmurs.

Sansa smiles. “Good luck, Ser Theon.”

As she rides away, he glances down. It’s a silver wolf’s head. The Starks had always had a weird thing for wolves, and it makes sense with the medieval theme, Theon guesses; still, he’d never seen Sansa give Joffrey anything like this.

Gendry is waiting for him at his end of the thoroughfare, holding that daunting lance. Theon tests its weight as he grabs it, trying to figure out how to balance it. It’s much less heavy than it looks; probably so that it doesn’t _actually _hurt anyone. Still, Theon had seen plenty of people get knocked off their horses before. It probably doesn’t help that Brienne Tarth treats every aspect of the jousting training with the utmost seriousness of a drill sergeant.

Well, he can’t back down now. Theon squares his shoulders and hoists his lance up to hip height. As Robin Arryn counts down over the loudspeaker, he glances down at the wolf pin on his chest and reminds himself it’s worth it.

A canned trumpet blast plays over the loudspeaker, and Robb’s horse must understand what the noise means, because suddenly Theon is flying and the world is rushing by in stripes of amber and brown. He clutches the lance with both hands and thanks every god he knows for the leg workouts his swim coach forced him to do all summer.

Across the other side of the thoroughfare, Joffrey is bearing down, his face obscured by his visor but his contempt visible. _Shit. _His visor. Theon’s still got his flipped up. A horrible vision of Joffrey’s lance slamming straight into Theon’s nose fills his head, and beneath him, the horse lurches, reacting to some invisible tension. Which ends up being good, despite Theon nearly losing his balance, because Joffrey’s lance whistles past his ear with only inches to spare.

They clatter to opposite ends of the field. Theon yanks at his visor until it falls down over his eyes. From the other end, Joffrey yells something indistinguishable. All Theon can hear is “come on, Greyjoy.”

Oh, he’ll show that twat.

Theon can feel anger building inside him, consuming his worry; Joffrey wasn’t supposed to aim for his fucking head! Theon’s not just going to bow down to him like the rest of the town, not after how he’d treated Sansa.

He glances over at her. She’s biting her lip, her eyes fixed on him.

The horses start to move again. This time, Theon’s ready; he’s upright in the saddle, hands clenched like a vise around the lance, and as he bears down on Joffrey, he imagines it like swimming. The path of least resistance holds the most power. Joffrey’s got his lance pointed at Theon again, towards his head, and Theon bends low and _swings_—

There’s an impact that reverberates through his arms, an angered cry. The world is rushing by, but the horn sounds, and Theon is still on his horse. He’s still sitting, which means—

“Fuck yeah!” he cheers, pumping his fist into the air.

He realizes, at about the same time that his horse bucks forward, that his lance has fallen out of his hands. Then the world blurs even more, and he hears the crowd gasp before everything goes black.

-

“Shut _up_, he’ll be fine—Theon?”

Theon groans. His mouth feels like it’s full of lead and it tastes like death.

He squeezes his eyes shut, reveling in the darkness, before he opens them. The world is a riot of color. Each time he blinks, it resolves itself a little more until he understands the haze of fire hanging over his head is Sansa’s hair.

“Theon!” she exclaims. “Oh, thank God.”

“What…”

“No, don’t sit up yet, stay down.” Theon falls back, confused, as Sansa’s hands move from his cheeks to his chest. His helmet is off, but the rest of his armor is still on, and he’s starting to realize just how bad it feels to fall off a horse while wrapped in a glorified tin can. He can feel the bruises blooming across at least eighty percent of his body.

“How are you feeling?” Sansa asks. Her hands have now moved to the back of his head. Theon briefly considers faking traumatic injury so that she’ll keep on taking care of him, but his pride wins out.

“Great. Did I win?”

Sansa stifles a giggle. “You knocked Joffrey on his ass. He’s so humiliated.”

Theon grins. “Well deserved.”

“You—”

She’s cut off by rushing footsteps, and a moment later, a bloodshot Robb is leaning over Theon, stinking of stale beer and something even more gross that Theon doesn’t want to think about. “Holy shit, man,” he says, and goes pale.

“I look that bad?”

“No, he just won’t stop throwing up.” Sansa shoots a glare at Robb. “You shouldn’t have left the house.”

“I felt bad,” Robb says weakly. “Theon, man, I’m sorry—”

“Hey, all’s well that ends well. I beat the bastard, didn’t I?” Theon is suddenly aware that they’re all still gathered on the jousting field, and that the stands are still full of people. And they’re all watching him.

“Can we go somewhere a little more private?” he mumbles to Sansa. She nods.

“Great idea.”

When he first tries to stand, he wavers, and Sansa has to get an arm around him to help him upright. Robb reaches out like he wants to help, but Sansa shoots him a look that Theon takes to mean ‘go be sick somewhere else,’ because Robb lurches off in the vague direction of the bathrooms.

And then it’s just the two of them, the early autumn breeze, and a metric ton of plate armor.

“Stupid outfit,” Theon grumbles, wincing as he takes another clanking step. “No idea how anybody ever fought in this shit. I feel like I’ve got bowling balls strapped on all my limbs.”

“I think it looks kind of good,” says Sansa.

Theon decides he’s never changing out of this suit of armor.

Sansa leads the way through the crowd, winding between gift stalls and photo booths, until they find themselves at the edge of the tree line. It becomes some kind of cheesy haunted forest in time for Halloween, but right now it’s just forgotten, a handful of harvest gourds scattered halfheartedly about as decorations. The late-afternoon sunlight filters through the leaves, just beginning to turn from green to gold; the glow lights Sansa up in warmth, and her radiance is enough to take Theon’s breath away.

“Are you feeling okay?” Sansa frowns.

Theon forces his jaw closed. “Yeah. I feel great. That felt—really great.”

The thing is, he’s not even lying. He’s still got the adrenaline in his veins from his bout with Joffrey, and mixed with the high of victory and his proximity to Sansa, it becomes a heady, intoxicating rush. He could climb a mountain right now. Swim the English Channel. Maybe even work up the nerve to say something halfway intelligent to the glowing girl standing in front of him.

“How mad is Joffrey?”

Sansa laughs, high and clear like a chime. “_Furious_. He fell in a horse pat. It was amazing.”

“What can I say? I have great aim.”

“Thank you, Theon.” Sansa reaches up and twists her fingers into a lock of his hair. Theon temporarily forgets how to breathe. “I’m only sorry it took me so long to see what a jerk he is. And for the person I turned into while I was with him. I didn’t mean to forget about everyone else. He was just so…”

“Obnoxious?” suggests Theon.

She smiles wistfully. “Demanding.”

“I guess that too.”

“I wish we still spent more time together. Like we did when we were young.”

“We could,” Theon says. The adrenaline is rising, transforming into something new: confidence. Maybe it’s tinged with a little recklessness, but hey, he needs that too. He’s not usually so nervous around girls; it’s just that Sansa is…_Sansa. _“You owe me one for this afternoon, yeah?”

“I suppose so,” says Sansa, but she’s grinning, too.

“Let me take you out, then. Dinner, a movie, whatever you want to do Just not this godforsaken place.”

“Are you asking me out on a _date_, Theon Greyjoy?”

Theon quirks an eyebrow. “What would you say if I was?”

“I would say—" Sansa’s voice lowers to a whisper as she brings her face closer to Theon’s, closer, closer still, until he can feel her breath on his lips—“it would be my honor.”

Oh. This is _happening._

Sansa is all warm and soft in his arms, seeming not to mind how uncomfortably the plate armor must be digging into her skin—or maybe she just doesn’t care, because her lips are touching his now, hesitant for a breath and then sure. Theon kisses back, and he’s kissed girls before, but it’s never been like _this_, his blood all fizzy in his veins and warmth blooming across his skin where Sansa touches him. He’d never believed in the fairy tales that the fair hawked before—but maybe, just maybe, this is what they’re like.

Sansa pulls back, but only enough for her to speak again. “My knight in shining armor.”

“I could be your knight without the armor, too.”

She laughs. “I believe it. Come on, you still have to do your victory lap.”

And maybe, Theon thinks as she takes his hand and leads him out of the forest, puffy sleeves and shining knights and old-fashioned chivalry aren’t so bad after all.

**Author's Note:**

> i miiiiight turn king's landing, new hampshire into a spooky lil series of oneshots in the future...we will see 👻 happy theonsa week my loves!!! more to come later 💖


End file.
